


True is it that we have seen better days

by chaletian



Series: Kyle Valenti: Alien Club MVP [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Kyle and Alex are the common sense police, Kyle is a good friend, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 03:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18682783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: Kyle takes it upon himself to sort everything out, because he is the best and also because he just put Jesse Manes in a barbiturate-induced coma so should be getting his superhero cape any day now. He provides a listening ear, relationship advice and, when the chips are down, donuts and coffee.





	True is it that we have seen better days

After Kyle gets Jesse Manes admitted, he figures he should probably let someone know that he had a meltdown and, btw, this has been the result. He’s actually starting to feel pretty zen about his decision making, now, having cycled through panic and anger and guilt. Jesse Manes 100% deserves this, if not for actively trying to murder Kyle, then for the despicable shit he’d been involved in at Caulfield. And sure, there are some issues here with Kyle playing god, maybe (something doctors should always be alert to), but you know what, under the circumstances, he’s still ok with this.

He goes to tell Alex, his weird-family-alien-conspiracy partner-in-crime, who has the family connections and Air Force position to maybe smooth over the situation and who should probably also know that his genocidal murderer dad is currently in a coma. He heads out to the cabin, and sure enough, Alex is there, slumped on the porch in civvies, looking a bit like a miserable throw-back to high school Alex.

“Hey,” says Kyle, climbing out of his car.

“Hey,” says Alex. He actually does look pretty miserable, but hey, it’s been a crazy few days and Kyle himself has had a meltdown, so he’s not going to judge.

“So, bit of a – shift over – situation with your dad,” he begins, joining Alex on the porch.

“What the hell sort of situation?” asks Alex, sitting upright, alarmed, and Kyle raises a conciliatory hand.

“I’ve dealt with it,” he says, then shrugs. “Well, sort of dealt with it. That’s why I’m here. So, I found he murdered my dad, which wasn’t really a surprise, then I lost it a bit and went to buy a gun, but it turns out that’s not really my style, so I bought a bullet-proof vest instead…”

“Jesus,” says Alex, looking horrified but ha, he hasn’t even heard it all yet.

“Which was a great idea because your dad tried to kill me. Like, he actually shot me, man. He is _nuts_.”

“Are you OK?” asks Alex, grabbing Kyle by the shoulder, and the concern is appreciated, because Kyle actually thought he’d burnt those bridges a long time ago with Alex, so he’s glad that they’ve sort of found their way back to being friends. It’s nice.

“I mean, mostly?” he says. “Like, I probably need some counselling, I think, after finding out what Dad was involved in? And what happened to him? And I shot your dad full of barbiturates and he’s in a coma now, so I thought I should come by and let you know.”

Alex sinks his face into his hands for a second, then takes a breath. “In a coma. OK. Where?”

“I had him admitted,” Kyle says.

“I’ll need to let the base know,” Alex says, clearly starting to make a mental list. “Then we need to do some housekeeping on that bunker. Or, no, the other way round. And I need to find out where Flint ended up.”

“Yes,” says Kyle. “Good plan.” He realises suddenly that his hands are shaking, and stuffs them in his pockets. Man, this shit is fucked up. He takes a deep breath, then another. “Alien conspiracies are so outside my area of expertise,” he admits.

“Yeah,” says Alex, looking constipated, “me too.”

Kyle isn’t exactly looking for a distraction, but he’s not going to turn one down, and he’s happy to put this whole thing to one side for a moment.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” he asks.

“Nothing,” says Alex, but he hasn’t put that smooth Air Force Manes mask fully back on, and Kyle can tell it’s bullshit.

“Bullshit,” he says. “What’s wrong? Family stuff? Caulfield?”

Alex winces at that, which Kyle can understand, because Caulfield was intense, both in and of itself, and having to see the aftermath in Michael Guerin on the drive back, and in retrospect actually Kyle is not happy they left Guerin by himself, however much he said he was fine, because he had transparently not been fine; the very opposite of fine, and Kyle feels bad that he let that slip by.

“Have you heard from Guerin?” he asks, not waiting for Alex to come out with whatever was bothering him. “I don’t think we should have left him like that.”

“Guerin’s fine,” says Alex, jaw clenched.

“Dude, there’s no way he’s fine,” argues Kyle. “You saw him – he was a mess. Probably in shock. Shit, you know, we should check him out…”

“He’s fine,” says Alex. “I’ve seen him, he’s great, he’s having a great time."

Kyle’s mama didn’t raise no fools, and while he may not be the most perspicacious guy around when it comes to other people’s relationships, this is raising warning signs all over the place.

“Okaaaay,” he says slowly. “And when you say he’s having a great time, you mean…”

“Him and Maria,” Alex says, and shrugs.

“Maria DeLuca and Guerin?” says Kyle, surprised. “Man, I would not have called that.” He really wouldn’t. Like most locals, Kyle’s spent his time at the Wild Pony over the years, and he’s pretty sure the strongest emotion Maria’s ever felt for Guerin was a visceral urge to kick him in the balls every time he smashed up her bar getting in a fight.

“Yeah, well, times change,” says Alex.

The thing is, Kyle is not clear on why Alex is having such a hard time over Maria deciding to get it on with… oh, no, wait. There it is. OK. That makes sense now. Actually, way more things make sense now.

“So,” he says carefully. “You and Michael.”

“Are not involved,” says Alex abruptly. “We had a history, I ended it, we’re done.” He hoists himself up off the porch. “We should probably get started on the bunker. It won’t be long before someone realises Dad’s AWOL and the sooner I report him in the hospital, the better.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but Kyle isn’t going to push (right now), so he says, “OK,” and leaves it at that. (BUT! Alex and Michael had a thing? Guerin’s been pretty notorious round Roswell for years now, and it’s never involved a guy before! And since when? Alex hasn’t even been back that long! And he ended it, but not, y’know, with emotional closure? This is fascinating! But clearly also traumatising, so.)

*

It takes the two of them a couple of days to clear out the bunker – Alex focusing on the electronic side, and Kyle hoicking boxes out to the truck to burn in the desert. They start in silence, but Kyle is not the silent type, so it’s not long before he starts talking through whatever he’s looking that, then talking through his feelings – about his dad and the disappointment of finding out what he was involved in, and how that altered Kyle’s perception of him. Alex is a reluctant participant in this soul-searching, but he gets there in the end, so they talk about what a asshole Master Sergeant Jesse Manes is (and Kyle finds out even more detail about that than he’d like, which just makes him furiously angry and even more glad about what he’d done), and wargame possible ways of dealing with him.

Kyle brings some beers over the following day, and after they’ve finished, they go back out to the cabin and get drunk.

“So,” says Kyle subtly, “you and Michael, huh?”

“Jesus, do you ever give up?” Alex slurs, making a little hitching sound that could be a laugh or a sob.

“Nope,” says Kyle, pressing another beer on his friend. “Might as well tell me.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Alex does. “We got together in high school,” he says, “for about a day. No, shit. It was…” He seems almost lost for words, and stares into the twilight for a long moment. “It was amazing. Michael is amazing. But – you know what it’s like when you’re kids? You think you’ve got everything sorted, but really nothing is under your control? My dad found out, and went – ballistic.” He frowns suddenly. “I wonder if he knew, even then, about Michael and Max and Isobel? Anyway, he--” he takes another drink, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, “we were in the shed, out the back, you know? Michael was sleeping in his truck, and I’d said he could stay there, and we were together, and my dad found us. I mean, I’ve seen him angry, but never like that. He picked up a hammer, and…” Alex trails off and drains his beer.

“Fuck,” breathes Kyle.

“And that’s what happened to Michael’s hand,” Alex finishes. He shoots Kyle a wry look. “I wasn’t given many choices about going to Basic after that,” he says.

“No shit,” says Kyle. He definitely did the world a favour re Jesse Manes and the barbiturates, he thinks dimly. Maybe he should get into some sort of vigilantism. Wear a cape.

“And I spent ten years in Air Force, tried to avoid Dad, lost my leg, and ended up back here,” says Alex. He stretches until he can hear his back click. Kyle passes him another beer, because this is clearly only part one of the story.

“And now,” he prompts, gesturing onwards.

Alex looks at him, almost fond, and shakes his head. “You are something else,” he says. “I’m almost glad we stopped being friends; you’re so annoying.”

“I’m here for you,” says Kyle soberly. It’s totally true.

“Jesus. What do you want? I ended up back here, hooked up with Michael again, let my dad get in my head, told him we couldn’t do that anymore, possibly broke his heart, jerked him around a bit more, walked out when he told me about—” he waved at the sky – “and finally got my head out of my ass when we at Caulfield, which turned out to be too late, and I’m sort of gutted about it.” He rubs his hand vigorously over his face, and Kyle punches him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, man,” he says.

“Well, that’s life, isn’t it?” says Alex bleakly, and Kyle passes him another beer. “So what’s your love life like these days?”

They get extremely drunk.

*

About a week after Caulfield, Kyle finds himself at a loose end, and heads out to the Wild Pony. It’s not that he wants to meddle in Alex’s affairs, but he figures someone should probably get an objective view of what’s going on, because Alex’s understanding is based on him showing up at the Pony, seeing Michael and Maria together through a window, and heading straight back out again, which is probably enough, but Kyle remembers – hindsight being 20-20 – how, in the truck back from Caulfield, Michael, shaking and distressed, had blindly turned to Alex for comfort, and maybe that wasn’t over yet.

There’s no sign of Michael at the bar, but Maria is there as usual, and Kyle heads over to order a drink.

“Kyle Valenti,” says Maria. “Long time no see.”

“Hey Maria,” he says. “Just a beer, please. How’s things?”

She shrugs. “Same old.”

“Your mom doing OK?”

“You know,” she says, and he does; it sucks.

“Yeah,” he says, taking his beer. “Hey, you seen Liz lately? I’ve been to the Crashdown a couple times, but nada.”

Maria frowns. “No, actually, not for a few days now.”

“Huh. How about Alex?”

Maria’s face sort of twitches, so there’s definitely something going on there; Alex hasn’t got things completely wrong.

“No, not him either,” she replies blankly. He opens his mouth, but she’s already speaking. “You got a roll call you want to go through, Valenti?”

He holds up a hand defensively. “Hey, just wondering where everyone’s got to.”

“Well, I have no idea, because nobody tells me anything, just go running off for days without a word.” Kyle can feel his eyebrows heading north, and evidently Maria can see them, because she sighs and deftly uncaps a beer for him. “I just—never mind.”

“I heard,” says Kyle, deliberately inspecting the beer label and not looking at Maria, “that you and Guerin hooked up.”

Maria groans, and props her head against her hand. “Shit, Roswell is too small.”

“I would not have called that,” says Kyle, because, seriously, he really wouldn’t.

“Yeah, well. He’s an asshole. I’m an asshole.”

He tries to look encouraging, and Maria rolls her eyes. “Ugh. Look. One of my friends is into him – like, _very_ into him. And I knew that. So, like I said, asshole. But Guerin ran out of here about two seconds later and I’ve not heard from him again, so, message received, Universe. I will try and be a better person.”

Kyle leaves not long after that, and heads straight over to the sheriff’s office where – at this point, not surprisingly – no-one has seen Max Evans in about a week because he’s apparently been called away with a family emergency. He pulls out his phone, and dials Alex.

“Something’s up,” he says.

*

“You never think maybe we just shouldn’t be getting involved?” says Kyle, as he scrambles over a rocky incline, and reaches out a hand to steady Alex.

“You called me,” Alex points out. “You didn’t have to get involved.”

“Yeah, well, I’m curious,” says Kyle, because Alex has a point. He waits while Alex checks his tablet again, and nods them in the same direction. They only have to walk another few hundred yards before Alex taps him on the shoulder, and mimes some sort of message, which is totally wasted because Kyle has never worked with the military and has no idea what he means. He tries to convey this through some expressive facial work and reckons it works because Alex stares at him judgementally for a moment before leaning over to murmur, “Just follow my lead.”

Alex is armed and dangerous, so Kyle is 100% following his lead; no grandstanding here. They have no idea what they’re walking into.

What they’re walking into is a shitshow of epic proportions. Like, Kyle has no scale for measuring this kind of thing. Max Evans is dead, in a pod; a pod that Rosa Ortecho had been dead in until Max brought her back to life. Rosa and Liz are still all over the place – emotional and traumatised and happy and freaked out. Rosa hasn’t been home; they’ve both been living in what is apparently Noah’s creepy alien hide-out. Isobel and Michael are both there, too; both wrecked – emotionally and physically in their attempts to revive Max. Nobody here seems to have been in a state to apply any common sense. Fortunately, the common sense police have now arrived, and Kyle and Alex pack the Ortechos off to Alex’s cabin with instructions to wash, eat, sleep in a real bed, and not do anything else for 24 hours.

Max is safely in an alien pod, so that leaves Isobel and Michael, who have both evidently run out of the ability to cope with anything. Kyle glances over at Alex, who was doing some deliberate not-looking at Michael at earlier, but that has clearly fallen by the wayside.

“Look,” he says, “I’ll take Isobel back to hers. You take Michael, OK? Alex?” He waits till Alex looks at him and acknowledges his suggestion before going over to crouch down in front of Isobel. “Isobel, I’m going take you home now.”

Isobel shakes her head. “Max…” she says.

“Max is fine where he is,” says Kyle patiently. “You need to get some rest.”

Support comes from an unexpected direction. “Go home, Iz,” says Michael, his voice raw. She looks over at him, and he nods, so she lets Kyle help her stand. “I’ll watch Max,” Michael continues, and Kyle shoots a look at Alex, who mostly looks like he wants to cry at this point. Michael is pale and unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. He looks terrible; a thousand times worse than on the way back from Caulfield. Kyle is so over all this bullshit.

“Hey,” says Alex, reaching out a hand and gentling Michael when he startles. “You heard Kyle. Max is fine here. We’ll take care of this. I’m going to take you back to the trailer now, OK, just for a while.”

“You don’t understand,” Michael begins, grabbing onto Alex and clinging in a way Kyle suspects he’s not even conscious of.

“I get it,” says Alex. “I swear I get it. But you need to rest, OK. Just for a while. We’ll come back later, I promise. We’ll figure this out.”

Kyle can hear them following behind as he escorts Isobel out; all in all, it’s proved easier than he initially thought to get the two of them to leave, probably because neither of them is in much condition to argue. On the drive back towards town, Isobel sits silently in front, but in the back, Michael won’t shut up, running through theories, ideas, concepts Kyle can’t get his head round. He talks desperately, like he’s begging the universe to make one of these thoughts spring into something useful. Alex doesn’t let go, totally focused on his ex-whatever. Kyle drops them off at the junkyard, watches long enough to make sure they reach the trailer without problems, and takes Isobel home.

*

Kyle brings donuts and coffee to Alex’s cabin the following day – the cabin is remote enough to make it their most discreet option for club meetings.

“Wow, Rosa,” he says, because wow.

Rosa looks at him distrustfully. “Kyle Valenti, huh?” she says to Liz.

“Kyle’s great,” says Liz, grabbing a donut and stuffing it in her mouth, and Kyle grins at Rosa, because yes, he is great.

Isobel appears half an hour later, looking like she’s mostly put herself back together. She and Rosa are still wary around each other, which is not a surprise. She is obviously silently judging the donuts, but eventually gives in and takes one. “What is…” she starts to ask, but Kyle cuts her off.

“No. Too many threads in this crazy conspiracy world we’re living in now,” he says. “We’ll wait for Alex and Michael, then we’ll talk.” Isobel considers him for a moment, head tilted to one side, then works on finishing her donut.

Alex and Michael arrive not long after. They both look pretty beat, Kyle thinks, running a professional eye over them, but Alex looks ok, and Michael looks noticeably less disastrous than yesterday, so everything has gone about as well as it could do, and the common sense police did their work well.

“OK,” says Alex, when he has surreptitiously forced both coffee and a donut on Michael, “so I think we all need to debrief, get on the same page, and work out a mission plan from there.”

“Totes,” says Kyle, grins blindingly at Alex, and stuffs the last donut in his face.


End file.
